New World‘s first major content patch is live, bringing the void gauntlet, a series of weapon balance adjustments, and a splash of variety to Aeternum.
The update lets players finally obtain the void gauntlet, a support/damage hybrid weapon that scales off Intelligence and Focus, giving healers and mage DPS another alternative to their arsenal. The void gauntlet has two trees: Annihilation, focused on raw damage, and Decay, which excels at debuffing enemies. The void gauntlet’s abilities are versatile, making it an excellent choice for magic-based classes and a solid option for players who want to add a little bit of utility to their arsenal, regardless of weapon class.
Related: Best void gauntlet builds in New World
As part of the series of weapon balancing tweaks, the life staff took a 20-percent nerf across the board. AGS offset that change with a tweak to the healing buffs in equip load, bringing the Light Armor bonus to 30 (up from 20) and the healing bonus to Medium Armor to 15 percent (up from 10).
The adjustments aim to “move some of the healing power into the light and medium equip loads while reducing some of the power of the tanky healing builds.” For that reason, Heavy Armor remains unchanged. Additionally, however, the 10-percent increase to healing in Light Armor and the five-percent buff in Medium Armor could still offset less healing after the nerf.
AGS also made a series of tweaks to the balancing of all existing weapons in the game. The fire staff took a strong hit to its basic attacks and the several ways of getting Empower through its skill trees, while the Ice Gauntlet received nerfs to some of its abilities. The patch notes show the full extent of the changes.
In addition to the big-picture changes, AGS added a 10-percent increase in movement speed when walking on roads, making it so walking around Aeternum is slightly less torturous if players stick to roads. This buff is disabled when engaging in combat “in any way,” including dodging, attacking, blocking, or receiving a debuff. It also doesn’t apply in PvP, such as Outpost Rush, wars, or duels.
New World‘s first major update adds slightly more variety to the game with a new faction, the Varangian Knights, in the early game. The main storyline is also getting more variety other than the burdensome trinity of objectives: finding chests, killing enemies, or hunting down beasts. There are even new types of PvP faction missions.
